Large survey compressive designs

ABSTRACT

Apparatus and methods of categorizing a subterranean formation including collecting data related to the formation, performing an algorithm comprising guided Bayesian survey design, identifying data observations to collect, and collecting additional data observations related to the formation. In some embodiments, the performing comprises forming a matrix or loading a matrix or both. Apparatus and methods of categorizing a subterranean formation including collecting data related to the formation, performing an algorithm comprising guided Bayesian survey design, identifying data observations to use, and processing the data observations wherein the observations require less processing time than if no algorithm were performed.

BACKGROUND

We are in an era of ‘Big Data’ in industrial geoscience. In commercialsettings, massive data volumes are routinely acquired that challenge ourability to store and intelligently process them. The volume of dataroutinely acquired in industrial settings is becoming so large that itcan no longer be processed in toto with traditional processing tools. Inexploration seismology, for instance, it is not unusual to collecthundreds of millions of seismic traces of several thousand time sampleseach, which results in data volumes on the order of a trillion values.Our ability to store and mine this deluge of information is a majortechnical challenge. Model-oriented design is useful to the geosciences.Maurer and Curtis give a comprehensive review of the state of the art,covering topics ranging from the optimization of earthquake-monitoringnetworks and electromagnetic surveys, to the optimum design of seismictomography experiments and seismic amplitude variation with offset/anglesurveys. Maurer and Curtis also discuss the algorithms typically usedfor the optimization aspect of design, including global and sequentialstrategies

FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a reduction workflow for Guided Bayesian surveydesign. Filled boxes signify distributable work.

FIG. 2 is a plot of nonzero eigenspectra as a function of index.

FIG. 3 is a schematic of Dual Coil Shooting geometry.

FIGS. 4A-4B are a series of schematics of a region of land.

FIG. 5 is an illustration of coil positions.

FIG. 6 illustrates point scatterer positions on on target horizon

FIGS. 7A-7I are a series of schematic views of D-optimum selection orderand forecasted model uncertainty.

SUMMARY

Embodiments herein relate to apparatus and methods of categorizing asubterranean formation including collecting data related to theformation, performing an algorithm comprising guided Bayesian surveydesign, identifying data observations to collect, and collectingadditional data observations related to the formation. In someembodiments, the performing comprises forming a matrix or loading amatrix or both. Embodiments herein relate to apparatus and methods ofcategorizing a subterranean formation including collecting data relatedto the formation, performing an algorithm comprising guided Bayesiansurvey design, identifying data observations to use, and processing thedata observations wherein the observations require less processing timethan if no algorithm were performed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Several techniques have recently arisen to address big data ingeoscience, including compressive sensing, dimension reduction, sourceencoding, and optimal experimental design. The common goal of thesemethods is, by some means, to select and process a smaller data volumewhile achieving the same or comparable results as though the entire datavolume had been used.

Herein we focus on experimental design, the theory and practice ofdesigning experiments to maximize the expected information in dataobservations. Among the methods noted above, optimal design isdistinguished because it can be applied a priori, before dataacquisition, to prescribe the observation locations where data areforecast to be most informative for the processing workflow, and also aposteriori, to select the most informative data from an extant dataset.The other methods work only a posteriori and do not optimize theforecasted information in data. In other words, optimal experimentaldesign is unique because (1) it is an optimization method and (2) it cantell us where to make data observations beforehand, resulting in smallerdata volumes, faster processing times, and reduced acquisition costs.

In particular, we focus on model-oriented design and analysis (MODA),which is optimal experimental design for the case when the data arerelated to some model parameters of interest through a specifiedmathematical model, hereinafter called a theoretical function. Forexample, the equation of a parabola is a theoretical function thatdescribes the trajectory of a ball thrown under the effect of gravity.Supposing the position of the ball is observed with a time-lapse camera,the times at which the observations are made constitute an experiment,and determining the optimal observation points at which the ball shouldbe photographed to infer the gravitational acceleration with maximumprecision is an example of a MODA problem.

While MODA can be used to optimally select maximally informative datasubsets for subsequent analysis, it is itself impeded by large datavolumes, large earth models, and the exigencies of computation inhigh-dimensions. Several approaches have been proposed to reduce thecomputational burden of optimal design, including experimenthyper-parameterization, in which spatially distributed experiments aremodeled and optimized with respect to a few control parameters, fastoptimization algorithms, and nonlinear design theory that avails itselfof the above algorithms.

Herein we find that a dimension reduction pre-processing step cangreatly reduce the subsequent memory and computing requirements oflinearized MODA. We focus on a MODA technique called Guided Bayesiansurvey design and demonstrate dimension reduction on a synthetic dataexample followed by a real, industrial-scale optimal design problem inmarine seismic data acquisition in which a compression rate greater than99.8 percent was achieved.

-   -   Guided Bayesian survey design (GBSD) is a linearized, Bayesian        method of model-oriented experimental design that optimizes an        experiment—in this context, a geoscientific survey—while taking        into account prior information on the model parameters of        interest.

Specifically, supposed(m|ξ)=g(m|ξ)+ε(m|ξ)  (1)is a mathematical model relating data vector d to model parameter vectorm, given a set of observation points (experiment) ξ, where g is thetheoretical function and ε is a vector of stochastic measurement errors.A linearization of equation 1 about reference model m₀ is given byd=Gm+ε,  (2)where G is the Jacobian matrix of partial derivatives of g with respectto the model parameters m.

Suppose one has a priori knowledge of m which is characterized by aprior model distribution, and suppose this distribution is multivariateGaussian (multinormal) with mean m₀ and covariance Σ_(m), i.e., m˜N(m₀,Σ_(m)). This prior distribution represents the current uncertainty onthe model parameters; the broader it is, the more uncertain is it thatm₀ is the correct model parameterization. Moreover, suppose one knows apriori that the measurement noise will be multinormally distributed withzero mean and covariance Σ_(d), i.e., ε˜

(0, Σ_(d)). One reference proves that the posterior modeldistribution—the distribution of the model parameters after the observeddata vector, d_(obs), corresponding to experiment is assimilated withprior information—is also multinormal with mean{tilde over (m)}=m ₀+{tilde over (Σ)}_(m) G*Σ _(d) ⁻¹(d _(obs) −Gm₀)  (3)and covariance{tilde over (Σ)}_(m)≡(Σ_(m) ⁻¹ +G*Σ _(d) ⁻¹ G)⁻¹  (4)where ‘*’ denotes the Hermitian transpose. Note that the existence ofthe inverse posterior covariance matrix is guaranteed if the priorcovariance matrix is invertible, which can always be made true inpractice.

In GBSD, equations 3 and 4 are respectively forecasts of the modelvector and its uncertainty if the data from experiment ξ were acquiredand assimilated with prior information. Guided Bayesian design seeks tominimize the forecasted model uncertainty with respect to ξ byminimizinglog det {tilde over (Σ)} _(m),  (5)which is the D-optimality criterion in optimal experimental design. TheD-criterion is proportional to the volume of the confidence region inthe multinormal case, so GBSD can be understood to minimize posteriormodel uncertainty by minimizing the forecasted confidence region.

For ease of notation, it is useful to introduce the precision matrix,which is defined as the inverse of a covariance matrix. Equation 4 canthen be reformulated in the tidier form,{tilde over (P)} _(m) ≡P _(m) +G*P _(d) G,  (6)where {tilde over (P)}_(m)≡{tilde over (Σ)}_(m) ⁻¹, P_(m)≡Σ_(m) ⁻¹ and{tilde over (P)}_(d)≡{tilde over (Σ)}_(d) ⁻¹. D-optimality isequivalently honored by maximizinglog det {tilde over (P)} _(m),  (7)

Hence, minimizing posterior model uncertainty is equivalent tomaximizing posterior model precision under the D-criterion. BecauseΣ_(m) is a prior and thus is constant and positive definite, it is easyto show that maximizing

$\begin{matrix}{{{\Phi(\xi)} = {\log\;\det{\sum\limits_{m}^{\frac{1}{2}}\;{{\overset{\sim}{P}}_{m}\sum\limits_{m}^{\frac{1}{2}}}}}}\;,} & (8)\end{matrix}$equivalently honors the D-criterion, where the superscript signifies theprincipal square root of the matrix. This formulation of theD-optimality objective function will be used to simplify laterdevelopment.Compression

Dimension reduction describes any method by which multidimensionaldatasets are reduced to a lower-dimensional space where all or most ofthe data variability is preserved. In other words, dimension reductionis a form of data compression, and hereafter these terms are usedinterchangeably. We posit that large data analysis problems frequentlygive rise to significant redundancies in data and model space. Forexample, in a seismic survey design problem in which the model is avector of scattering strengths along a seismic reflecting surface, thereis clearly some point at which increasing the scatterer density will notimprove the image resolution when the maximum frequency of the survey isfixed. The scattering strengths just become increasingly correlated asthe resolution of the surface description increases. Similarly in thedata space, nearby measurements are almost always correlated. Dimensionreduction takes advantage of such correlations by finding alower-dimensional set of intrinsic variables in which the physicalproblem can be described and solved.

When the data are arrayed as a matrix, various techniques fromstatistics and linear algebra are available for dimension reduction.These methods often involve some kind of matrix factorization, such assingular value decomposition or QR-factorization. This report focuses onthe reduction of large matrices by distributable matrix factorization.That is, the factorization can be distributed over multiple machines inorder to reduce factorization runtime and, subsequently, the memoryfootprint and computational burden of any subsequent computation on thedata matrix.

Because the D-criterion is determinant-based, and the determinant equalsthe cumulative product of the eigenspectrum (the eigenvalues) of amatrix, it is sufficient for the chosen compression scheme to be(approximately) spectrum-preserving.

To reduce the row-dimension of matrix X and to distribute the work overmultiple processes, one method amenable to this is the rank-revealing QRfactorization (RRQR) (other rank-revealing factorizations should alsowork with the following theory). In classical QR-factorization, a matrixis factored into the product of an orthonormal matrix, Q, and an uppertriangular matrix, R:X=QR.

Rank-revealing QR modifies the factorization by introducing a columnpermutation matrix, Π, such thatXΠ=QR.

The permutation Π is chosen so that the (absolute) diagonal entries of Rdecrease. If X has rank k, only the first k diagonal entries of R arenonzero, thus revealing the rank of X. Moreover, when X is row-rankdeficient, only the first k rows of R have nonzero entries. In otherwords, if rank(X)=k<m, R is upper ‘trapezoidal’, with nonzero rows up tothe k-th row.

Consider an arbitrary partitioning of X into the row-block form,

-   -   a.

$\begin{matrix}{{X = \begin{bmatrix}X_{1} \\X_{2}\end{bmatrix}},} & (9)\end{matrix}$and let X_(i)Π_(i)≡Q_(i)R_(i) be the RRQR of the i-th partition of X,whence

-   -   a.

$\begin{matrix}{{X = \begin{bmatrix}{Q_{1}R_{1}\Pi_{1}^{*}} \\{Q_{2}R_{2}\Pi_{2}^{*}}\end{bmatrix}},} & (10)\end{matrix}$noting that the inverse of a permutation matrix is its (Hermitian)transpose. Omitting the Q_(i)s and performing RRQR on the remaindergives

-   -   a.

$\begin{matrix}{{\begin{bmatrix}{R_{1}\Pi_{1}^{*}} \\{R_{2}\Pi_{2}^{*}}\end{bmatrix}\mspace{14mu}\Pi} \equiv {{QR}.}} & (11)\end{matrix}$

Recalling that all Q matrices are orthonormal, notice thatX*X=Π ₁ R ₁ *R ₁Π₁*+Π₂ R ₂ *R ₂Π₂*  i.andR*R=ΠX*XΠ*.  a.

Now, all permutation matrices are orthonormal, and orthonormal matriceshave the property that, when multiplied by an arbitrary matrix A, theproduct has the same eigenspectrum as A. Therefore, R*R has the sameeigenspectrum as X*X. Furthermore, since the eigenspectrum of A*A equalsthe square of the eigenspectrum of A, R and X must therefore have thesame eigenspectrum up to signs.

More generally, the matrix X can be partitioned into an arbitrary numberof row-blocks,

-   -   a.

$\begin{matrix}{{X = \begin{bmatrix}X_{1} \\\vdots \\X_{r}\end{bmatrix}},} & (12)\end{matrix}$and the same results obtain. To see this, note that if R_(i)Π*_(i)corresponds to the i-th partition of X and

-   -   a.

$\begin{matrix}{{{\begin{bmatrix}{R_{1}\Pi_{1}^{*}} \\\vdots \\{R_{r}\Pi_{r}^{*}}\end{bmatrix}\mspace{14mu}\Pi} \equiv {QR}},} & (13)\end{matrix}$then

-   -   1.

${X^{*}X} = {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{r}\;{\Pi_{i}R_{i}^{*}R_{i}\Pi_{i}^{*}}}$andR*R=ΠX*XΠ*,  a.as before, whence the same eigenspectrum arguments apply.

The derivations above show that a matrix X can be arbitrarilypartitioned and transformed via a series of RRQR factorizations into aright-triangular matrix R, which shares its eigenspectrum with X.Because the partitions of X can be factored independently, X can befactored—at least partly—in parallel. Each process can be assigned anX_(i), for which it computes the corresponding Q_(i)R_(i)Π_(i)*. Theresulting R_(i)Π_(i)s can then be sent to one process, on which a secondRRQR factorization is computed, resulting in the final transformation ofX into R.

The importance of using rank revealing factorizations is this: if X ism-by-n, R is initially n-by-n, but if k≡rank(X)≦min(m, n) then R may betruncated to dimensions k-by-n with no loss of information. Dimensionreduction may thus be effected when the numerical rank of X is less thanits row-dimension. This is a common situation with large geoscientificexperiments, in which there are many more data observations (rows) thanmodel parameters (columns).

It is worth noting that R and the R_(i)Π_(i)s are sparse, whichcontributes to further storage efficiencies.

It is also notable that QR in equations 11 and 13 is not strictly theRRQR factorization of X. It would be had the Q_(i)s been retained, butthey have been omitted to boost computational efficiency, since only aspectrum-preserving reduction is required and eigenspectra are unalteredunder orthonormal transformation.

Furthermore, a permutation matrix should never be explicitly stored, asit can be efficiently represented as a vector of integers. Also,multiplication with permutation matrices should never be explicitlydone, since permutation simply reorganizes columns (rows).

The theory above outlines how to reduce the row-dimension of a matrix.It is easily extended to column-dimension reduction by replacing X byits transpose or Hermitian.

Composite Observations

A traditional MODA problem for an active remote-sensing technology is tooptimize the positions of individual sensors with respect to acontrolled source. Geoscientific data acquisition practices tend toexpand this problem by replacing individual sensors with arrays ofsensors in predefined geometries. Sensor arrays abound in geoscience: 3Dresistivity systems comprising grids of geoelectrodes simultaneouslyrecord the potential field response from a single EM source; marineseismic streamers comprising multiple cables with hydrophones placedalong their lengths simultaneously record the pressure field responsefrom a single airgun. Hereafter, we refer to any set of dataobservations that are taken as a unit a composite observation.

A Guided Bayesian design problem with composite observations isessentially the same as one with individual observations, only theoptimization is with respect to sensor arrays rather than singlesensors. The mathematical machinery of GBSD needs only minor alteration.The linearized theoretical function from equation 2 becomes

-   -   1.

$\begin{matrix}{{\begin{bmatrix}d_{1} \\\vdots \\d_{n}\end{bmatrix} = {\begin{bmatrix}G_{1} \\\vdots \\G_{n}\end{bmatrix}m}},} & (14)\end{matrix}$where d_(i) is the data vector corresponding to the i-th compositeobservation and G_(i) is its corresponding Jacobian. Furthermore, theposterior precision matrix in equation 6 becomes

-   -   1.

$\begin{matrix}{{{\overset{\sim}{P}}_{m} = {P_{m} + {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{r}\;{G_{i}^{*}P_{d_{i}}G_{i}}}}},} & (15)\end{matrix}$where P_(d) _(i) is the measurement error precision matrix for the i-thcomposite observation.GBSD with Compression

When the dimensions of the data and model vectors are large, theresulting Jacobian in Guided Bayesian survey design can becomputationally unwieldy, and compression methods are needed. Here, weassume the experiment will consist of composite observations, and weaccordingly reformulate the GBSD objective function to take bestadvantage of the reduction theory just developed.

By substituting equation 15 into expression 8 and simplifying, the GBSDobjective function can be rewritten as

$\begin{matrix}{{{\Phi(\xi)} = {\log\;{\det\left( {1 + {\sum\limits_{i = i}^{r}\;{\Gamma_{i}^{*}\Gamma_{i}}}} \right)}}},} & (16)\end{matrix}$where I is the identity matrix and

$\Gamma_{i} \equiv {P_{d_{i}}^{\frac{1}{2}}G_{i}{\sum\limits_{m}^{\frac{1}{2}}\;.}}$

The form of expression 16 is useful for several reasons. First, Γ_(i)contains all prior information in one matrix and thus eliminates theneed to carry Σ_(m) or P_(d) _(i) in memory. Second, expression 16 isplainly in a form suited to our reduction theory. To wit, if

-   -   a.

$\begin{matrix}{{\Gamma \equiv \begin{bmatrix}\Gamma_{1} \\\vdots \\\Gamma_{r}\end{bmatrix}},} & (17)\end{matrix}$then the sum in expression 16 is Γ*Γ. Plainly, Γ is a block matrix uponwhich the reduction method herein is immediately applicable, possiblyalong both row and column dimensions. Third, if Γ is suited to columnreduction then the resulting R—and its inner product, R*R—has a lowercolumn dimension than {tilde over (Σ)}_(m) or {tilde over (P)}_(m)(expressions 5 and 7). Naturally, because the reduced matrices involvedin computing the D-criterion will exist in a lower-dimensional spacethan the originals, the computation will be faster and have reducedmemory overhead.

The purpose in studying dimension reduction for Guided Bayesian designis to increase the computational efficiency. To get aback-of-the-envelope idea of possible savings, suppose each G_(i) ism-by-n. If each G_(i) were full column rank, each R_(i) would be n-by-nand would have at most n(n+1)/2 nonzero entries to store (because ofupper triangularity). Assuming dense G_(i), the compression rate intransforming from G_(i) to R_(i) would then be 1−(n+1)/(2m). Forexample, if the number of data observations in one composite observationwere (m=)10⁶ and the number of model parameters were (n=)10⁵, thecompression rate would be about 95 percent using RRQR factorization.

If there were significant data/model redundancies, then each G_(i) mighthave rank k<min(m,n), in which case R_(i) would be k-by-n with at mostk(k+1)/2+k(n−k) nonzero entries. Assuming k=10⁴ and m and n as before, acompression rate of around 99 percent could be attained.

Depending on the dimensions of the underlying system, large compressionrates are apparently possible with the RRQR method above. Thiscompression translates into computational savings as described in moredetail below.

Algorithms for Optimum Design

Herein, we provide dimension reduction for design problems, so only abrief account is given here of the algorithms for actually optimizingexperiments.

Initially, global optimization approaches such as simulated annealingand the genetic algorithm were employed to find the optimum experimentsin linearized geoscientific MODA methods like Guided Bayesian surveydesign, but these approaches are deemed too computationally expensivefor all but the smallest problems.

Prevalent these days are sequential algorithms like the Construction,Exchange, and Decimation Algorithms. These algorithms use a greedyapproach to optimization in which a solution is optimized through asequence of local updates which are optimal with respect to the currentsolution but not necessarily with respect to the global objectivefunction. Greedy optimization does not guarantee global optimality, butColes and Curtis show that it may come close in the practice ofgeoscientific MODA. Further details on performance and computationalcomplexity are found in Darrell Coles and Andrew Curtis, “Efficientnonlinear Bayesian survey desing using DN optimization,” Geophysics,76(2):Q1-Q8, 2011 and Darrell Coles and Michael Prange, “Towardefficient computation of the expected relative entropy for nonlinearexperimental design,” Inverse Problems 28(5): 055019, 2012.

Method

Herein, we provide pseudocodes, based on the theory above, forimplementing parallel compression on Jacobian matrices for GuidedBayesian survey design. Three routines are provided: first is the mainalgorithm (Compress), which is mirrored in the flowchart in FIG. 1;second is a subroutine describing the steps for reducing the rowdimensions of a matrix (ReduceRows); third is a subroutine doing thesame for the column dimension (ReduceCols).

In the COMPRESS procedure, the job of compression is partitioned into ntasks. The i-th task involves forming or loading the matrix Γ_(i), whichcorresponds to the i-th composite observation. If the row-dimension ofΓ_(i) is much greater than its column-dimension, the ROWREDUCE procedureis invoked, transforming Γ_(i) as described in that procedure.Otherwise, if the column-dimension of Γ_(i) is much greater than itsrow-dimension, the REDUCECOLS procedure is invoked, transforming Γ_(i)as described in that procedure.

In the REDUCEROWS procedure, the input matrix, Γ, is decomposed by therank-revealing QR-factorization into the product of orthonormal matrixQ, upper triangular matrix R, and conjugate-transpose permutation matrixΠ*, thus Γ=QRΠ*. The rank of R is computed, and R is then truncated byremoving all rows whose indices are greater than its rank (this is theactual row-reduction step). Γ is then updated by setting it equal to theproduct of the truncated R matrix and the conjugate-transposepermutation matrix Π*.

In the REDUCECOLS procedure, the Γ_(i)'s from each distributed task arecollected together in one process to form a row-block matrix, Γ*. Therank-revealing QR-factorization is applied to decompose Γ* into matrixproduct QRΠ*, similar to the REDUCEROWS procedure. The rank of R iscomputed and the matrix Q is truncated by removing all columns whoseindices are greater than the rank of R. The column-truncated Q andpermutation matrix Π are then broadcast to the processes where theoriginal Γ_(i)'s reside, and each Γ_(i) is transformed byleft-multiplication with Π* and right-multiplication with the truncatedQ matrix.

To provide more detail, please find following additional analysis ofFIG. 1. This figure lays out graphically Algorithm 1 (Arrows indicatethe flow of operation. In the case of a decision diamond, only one pathmay be followed—either YES or NO—which depends on whether the conditionis true or false.)

Compute/load G_(i): If the Jacobian matrix for the i-th compositeobservation has not been generated and stored, it is computed in thisstep. This computation is problem-dependent and is assumed to be handledby an appropriate external process. If the i-th Jacobian has previouslybeen generated and stored, it is loaded from file.

Transform G_(i) to

Γ_(i): Left- and right-multiply G_(i) by the matrix square root of thei-th data precision matrix and matrix square root of the modelcovariance matrix,

${\Gamma_{i} \equiv {P_{d_{i}}^{\frac{1}{2}}G_{i}\sum\limits_{m}^{\frac{1}{2}}}},$to transform G_(i) to

. The data precision and model covariance matrices can be loaded andthen their square roots computed as part of this step or the squareroots can already be computed and loaded directly.

Row>>cols: Decision point. If there are the row-dimension of Γ_(i) ismuch greater than the column-dimension, goto Row-reduce step; else, gotonext decision point.

Row-reduce Γ_(i): follow the REDUCEROWS procedure in Algorithm 1 toreduce the row-dimension of each Γ_(i).

Cols>>max_(i) rows: Decision point. If there are many more columns inΓ_(i) than there are rows in the largest of Γ_(i)'s, goto column-reducestep; else goto Run step.

Column-reduce Γ_(i): follow the REDUCECOLS procedure in Algorithm 1 toreduce the column-dimension of each Γ_(i).

Run GBSD: With the compressed Γ_(i)'s from the foregoing routine, runGuided Bayesian Survey Design. The GBSD routine only requires the Γ_(i)matrices and is independent of whether they have been compressed or not.

Note that because evaluating candidate (composite) observations inD-optimization involves computation with the rows of the Jacobian matrixcorresponding to each candidate (8), it is generally more efficient topre-compute the entire Jacobian than to load/compute entries as needed.So doing prevents re-computing entries and/or redundant I/O, which wouldotherwise occur since candidates are usually visited/evaluated more thanonce in the course of an optimization routine. The pseudocodes andworkflow below assume the entire Jacobian has been pre-computed.

Algorithm  1  Compression  of  the  Γ_(i)  is  performed  in  parallel  for  row${compression},{{and}\mspace{14mu}{partially}{\mspace{11mu}\;}{in}\mspace{14mu}{parallel}\mspace{14mu}{for}\mspace{14mu}{column}\mspace{14mu}{{compression}.\mspace{14mu}{The}}\mspace{14mu} P_{d_{i}}^{\frac{1}{2}}}$${and}\mspace{14mu} G_{i}\mspace{14mu}{matrices}\mspace{14mu}{are}\mspace{14mu}{computed}\mspace{14mu}{locally}\mspace{14mu}{by}\mspace{14mu}{each}\mspace{20mu}{{process}.\mspace{14mu}{The}}\mspace{14mu}\Sigma_{m}^{\frac{1}{2}}\mspace{14mu}{matrix}$is  computed  once  and  then  may  be  efficiently  distributed  to  processorsusing  a  broadcast  approach.  1: procedure COMPRESS  2:  for i = 1 . .. n do   

 Each i can be run in separate processors  3:   $\left. \Gamma_{i}\leftarrow{P_{d_{i}}^{\frac{1}{2}}G_{i}\Sigma_{m}^{\frac{1}{2}}} \right.$ 4:   if ROWS(Γ_(i)) >> COLS(Γ_(i)) then  5:    Γ_(i) ←REDUCEROWS(Γ_(i))  6:   end if  7:  end for  8:  if COLS(Γ) >> max_(i)ROWS(Γ_(i)) then

 All Γ_(i) have equal column size  9:   REDUCECOLS 10:  end if 11: endprocedure 12: procedure REDUCEROWS(Γ) 13:  {Q, R, Π} ← RRQR(Γ) 14:  k ←RANK(R) 15:  Γ ← R(1 : k, :)Π 16:  return Γ 17: end procedure 18:procedure REDUCECOLS 19:  Γ* ← [Γ₁ ^(*), Γ₂ ^(*), . . . , Γ_(n) ^(*)]   

 Get Γ_(i) from each processor 20:  {Q, R, Π} ← RRQR(Γ*)  

 Perform RRQR in the main processor 21:  k ← RANK(R) 22:  for i = 1 . .. n do 23:   Γ_(i) ← Π*Γ_(i)Q(:, 1 : k) 

 Send Q and Π to each processor for local               evaluation 24: end for 25: end procedure

Distributed computing is implied in these pseudocodes through theprocess variable, which is everywhere indexed with ‘i’. Anywhere the ‘i’subscript is seen, it refers to work or variables associated with thei-th of n processes.

‘Global’ variables are global only within a process, not acrossprocesses. All routines on a process with declared global variables haveaccess to, and can change, those declared variables. If a variable isnot declared globally, it is local to its routine and process. FIG. 1illustrates this. Refer to the pseudocodes in the text for more details.

4.1 EXAMPLE 1 Reduction Demonstration

To illustrate the RRQR reduction routine, we start with a simpleexample. Consider the matrix Aε

^(100×5), where A_(ij)≡e^(cos [5(i−1)+j]). Suppose A is partitioned as

${A \equiv \begin{bmatrix}A_{1} \\A_{2}\end{bmatrix}},$with equal-size partitions. If the RRQR-factorizations of A₁ and A₂ areA₁Π₁=Q₁R₁ and A₂Π₂=Q₂R₂, respectively, then the nontrivial parts of R₁and R₂ are

$R_{1} = {\begin{bmatrix}{- 10.72} & {- 4.68} & {- 5.61} & {- 8.94} & {- 6.07} \\0.00 & 9.49 & 7.27 & 2.41 & 7.00 \\0.00 & 0.00 & 5.39 & {- 3.27} & {- 3.73} \\0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 3.95 & 2.93 \\0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 1.86\end{bmatrix}\mspace{14mu}{and}}$ ${R_{2} = \begin{bmatrix}{- 10.88} & {- 4.62} & {- 5.42} & {- 9.23} & {- 6.14} \\0.00 & {- 9.51} & {- 7.33} & {- 2.38} & {- 7.00} \\0.00 & 0.00 & 5.36 & {- 3.22} & {- 3.70} \\0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & {- 3.93} & {- 2.93} \\0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & {- 1.87}\end{bmatrix}},$with corresponding permutation matrices

$\Pi_{1} = {\begin{bmatrix}1 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\0 & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\end{bmatrix}\mspace{14mu}{and}}$ $\Pi_{2} = {\begin{bmatrix}1 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\0 & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\end{bmatrix}.}$

Denoting the RRQR factorization of the row-block matrix formed by R₁Π*₁and R₂Π*₂

${{\begin{bmatrix}{R_{1}\Pi_{1}^{*}} \\{R_{2}\Pi_{2}^{*}}\end{bmatrix}\Pi} = {QR}},$then the nontrivial part of R is

${R = \begin{bmatrix}15.27 & 6.58 & 7.80 & 12.85 & 8.63 \\0.00 & {- 13.43} & {- 10.33} & {- 3.38} & {- 9.90} \\0.00 & 0.00 & {- 7.60} & 4.59 & 5.25 \\0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & {- 5.58} & {- 4.14} \\0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & {- 2.64}\end{bmatrix}},$with permutation

$\Pi = \begin{bmatrix}1 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\0 & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\0 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\end{bmatrix}$

While it is easily shown that R*R≠A*A, FIG. 2 demonstrates that thenonzero eigenspectra of R and A are indeed identical, as predicted bytheory.

4.2 EXAMPLE 2 Marine Seismic Survey Optimization

This example demonstrates the compression methodology as part of aGuided Bayesian design workflow to optimize a Dual Coil Shootingmulti-vessel full-azimuth survey (FIG. 3) on a real field in the Gulf ofMexico. FIG. 3 illustrates two recording spreads (blue) and four sources(stars) follow a coil path (red). Typical coil diameter is 12.5 km.(reproduced from WesternGeco). FIG. 4 illustrates the area ofinvestigation is the Revolution-III zone over Keathley Canyon, WalkerRidge, and Sigsbee Escarpment. The Revolution-III site contains a saltbody, beneath which is an anticlinal feature that may bear hydrocarbons.

The design exercise was to identify coil positions to optimallyilluminate a steep flank of the anticline, which was under-illuminatedby previous seismic data acquisition. Thirty-four coil positions wereselected as candidates, as shown in FIG. 5 (Salt body (gray) and targethorizon (magenta) at Revolution-III. Top of salt is 3.1 km BSL. Targethorizon is ˜9.8 km BSL. Yellow encircled region indicates the targetanticline. Red dots are the centers of the 34 candidate coils. Orangedots indicate the source footprint for one coil (12.5 km in diameter)).

Each coil comprised 1112 source shots, recorded by 3200 receivers towedbehind two vessels, for a total of 3558400 shot-receiver pairs per coil.An encompassing surface patch at the lithological interface of theanticline was selected as the target horizon. This horizon wasdiscretized into 7747 facets as shown in FIG. 6. FIG. 6 provides pointscatterer positions on on target horizon (yellow and orange dots).Orange delineates high uncertainty. Red dots are candidate coil centers.Each facet was treated as a point scatterer with model parametersrepresenting the elastic contrast across the interface. Thus, theJacobian for a single coil (composite observation) was 3558400-by-7747,which would require as much as 205 gigabytes (GB) of RAM at doubleprecision, meaning the set of all candidates Jacobians would require asmuch as 6.8 terabytes (TB).

Using ray tracing on an earth model built from an earlier seismicdataset, P-wave rays reflected off the target horizon were simulated foreach source-receiver pair. An analytic expression was used to computeentries in the Jacobian for each ray, which depended on its complexamplitude coefficient, travel time, point of incidence position on thetarget horizon, and the central shot frequency. The ray tracing wasperformed in advance, and the amplitudes, travel times, and positionswere stored to disk.

The model prior distribution was multinormal with mean (reference model)equal to the earth model inferred from an earlier seismic data set (andused in the ray tracing here). The prior model covariance was madediagonal, meaning the model parameters at the point scatterers in FIG. 6were uncorrelated. The variances along the diagonal were set to be 100times greater in the flank region (FIG. 6, red dots) than the background(FIG. 6, blue dots), making the standard error or uncertainty along theflank 10 times greater than the background. The data noise was alsomodeled as multinormal with zero mean, zero correlation, and standarddeviation set to 10 percent of the mean seismic trace amplitude.

Guided Bayesian survey design was used to optimize the order in whichcoils are added to the survey, from most informative to leastinformative. The optimization was performed without compression toprovide a baseline for assessing the performance with compression. Theoptimization without compression was performed in parallel on 34 2.60GHz CPUs distributed over 8 machines with 64 GB RAM each. Theoptimization with compression was multithreaded and performed on alaptop with 8 2.50 GHz CPUs and 16 GB RAM.

Several snapshots of the optimum selection order prescribed by GBSD areshown in FIGS. 7A to 7I. Model uncertainty is reported relative to thebackground and expresses a ratio of standard deviations. The targetarea, including the anticlinal flank (red patch, top left), was given anuncertainty 100 times greater than the background. Candidate coils: reddots; Selected coils: green dots. Numbers in the top-right of each panelindicate the number of optimally selected coils.

Notice that the first five optimally selected coils are responsible forthe majority of the reduction in forecasted model uncertainty in thetarget area. This is precisely the result expected from GBSD. The mostinformative coils are those that reduce the highest uncertainties, andthese are selected first in the optimization. Notice also that thepositions of the first 5 coils are not necessarily those one mightintuitively select. A more natural choice would seemingly be simply tocluster the coils more or less directly over the target area. However,the high-contrast, rugose salt body between the shot-receiver plane andthe target horizon complicates raypath geometries to a point thatintuitive coil placement is impossible and a more rigorous approach,like Guided Bayesian design, is required. The ability to prioritizeobservations (data) according to their relative information content, andthe non-intuitive geometry of the surveys thus optimized, are thehallmarks and main advantages of model-oriented design and analysis.

We confirmed the compression routine by verifying that the optimalselection order agreed between the compression and non-compression runsof the GBSD workflow. The value of the D-criterion objective functionwas also verified to agree for each added coil in the optimal selectionsequence.

The main confirmation of our methodology is in the performancecomparison in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Performance with and without compression. Compression* NoCompression** Compression Rate 99.83% 0% Max RAM Required  3 GB  255 GBCompute G Runtime 28 min   2 min Compression Runtime  1 min   0 minOptimization Runtime 28 min 1800 min Total Runtime 40 min 1802 min*Performed on an 2.50 GHz/16 GB RAM laptop. **Performed on 34 2.60 GHzCPUs over 8 machines with 64 GB RAM each.

We achieved a 99.83 percent rate of compression with our method. If theG matrices corresponding to the candidate coils had been dense, theywould have required 6.8 TB of storage before compression and only 11.8GB afterwards. In point of fact, the G matrices were sparse, so evenless RAM was required than predicted. Over the course of the entireworkflow—compression and optimization—the maximum RAM used wasapproximately only 3 GB. Without compression, the maximum RAM used wasapproximately 255 GB. Concomitant with the gain in memory efficiency wasan improvement in total runtime, which decreased from more than a day toless than an hour. Another important point is that the compressedproblem was small enough that we were able to migrate the execution froma computing cluster to a laptop. The total runtime reported for thecompression-aided workflow is indeed for a laptop, while that for theunaided workflow is for a cluster.

5 DISCUSSION

The theory and presented results illustrate that deterministiccompression methods can be effectively implemented in parallel to reducethe memory and computational requirements of model-oriented designtechniques such as Guided Bayesian survey design.

When employed as a pre-processing step, compression creates efficienciesin the subsequent analysis chain that are potentially quite large,especially when working with large data volumes that contain significantredundancies and/or when a substantial disparities exist between thesize of data and model spaces.

Distributed compression methods are potentially applicable to a varietyof other data analysis problems, as well as GBSD. The nonlinear MODAtechnique called D_(N)-optimization operates on large data covariancematrices for which distributed compression may be applicable. Anyinverse problem involving large Jacobians and/or covariance matrices,such as full waveform inversion, is also a potential candidate. Thefield of seismic history matching already examines dimension reductionmethods and may benefit from distributed approaches such as the onedeveloped here. Problems in feature extraction common to the patternrecognition and artificial intelligence communities could also benefitfrom our method.

An aspect of compression not explicitly addressed here is sparsity. Itwas noted in the marine seismic survey optimization example that theJacobian matrices were sparse. There are many standard methods to storeand operate on sparse matrices, and many common algorithms in linearalgebra have been modified and optimized for sparse matrices, such asthe sparse SVD and sparse QR factorization. Our seismic example tookadvantage of sparsity in terms of storage (sparse matrix formats wereused for the compressed and uncompressed runs) and in terms of thematrix factorization (the rank-revealing QR factorization is optimizedfor sparse matrices). With big data, it is a good idea to take advantageof sparsity whenever possible because it minimizes the memory footprintand eliminates useless computation.

It was noted that the column reduction algorithm, ReduceCols, hereincould not be distributed. This is because column reduction correspondsto a compression of model space, and compression is a kind oftransformation. We cannot transform the model parameters one way for oneobservation and a different way for another, because then theinformation provided by the two observations is no longer compatiblesince the observations ‘refer’ to two different model spaces.Consequently, whatever compressive transformation is performed on modelspace, it must be the same transformation for every data observation. Ifthe transformation is effected by matrix factorization (as is donehere), that factorization must be with respect to all possible dataobservations; hence, the column reduction algorithm must operate on allcandidate Jacobians at once and cannot be distributed. Fortunately,column (model) reduction may be omitted from the workflow withoutinvalidating the theory. If it is apparently too expensive to executecolumn reduction, it can simply be ignored.

We have introduced a method of dimension reduction using rank revealingQR-factorization to compress Jacobian matrices associated with GuidedBayesian survey design. The method is specifically designed to address‘Big Data’ problems, which are prevalent in industrial geoscience andrequire advanced techniques like Guided Bayesian survey design tointelligently manage data volumes as they stream to processingworkflows. The methodology can be used to reduce the row and/or columndimensions.

Column reduction is more complicated than row reduction when workingwith Jacobian matrices, however, because the column dimension associateswith model space. Model space reduction must be consistent for all dataobservations, and this precludes a parallel implementation of columncompression. Consequently, column reduction can be expensivecomputationally. However, the theory permits column reduction to beomitted in the compression workflow.

It was also pointed out that matrix sparsity is beneficial in big dataproblems. Efficient storage formats and optimized matrix factorizationscan be used to reduce the memory footprint and minimize needlesscomputation when data structures are sparse. We used sparse storage inour marine seismic example which, coupled with compression, reduced thememory footprint from a possible 6.8 TB to only 3 GB. We also used amatrix factorization that was optimized for sparse matrices.

A key advantage of our compression technique is that it isparallelizable. The work of dimension reduction can be partitioned overmultiple processes to minimize the impact of big data on both memory andcomputational requirements. Without this, many big data problems mightotherwise be too large to handle.

We also note that distributed compression technologies may be applied inmany other data analysis settings, from large-scale inversion problemsto nonlinear design problems to feature extraction.

The compression method was illustrated on a real marine seismic surveyoptimization problem in which the ‘units of observation’ were groupingsof several million shot-receiver pairs arrayed in coil geometries 12.5km in diameter. In the worst case, the Jacobian matrices associated withthese coils would have required several terabytes of storage, but acompression rate of 99.83 percent was achieved. Thanks to this highrate, the memory footprint of the Guided Bayesian workflow was reducedto a point that the optimization could be—and was—performed on a laptop,rather than on a computing cluster. By reducing the dimensions of theproblem, the computational runtime of the Guided Bayesian surveyoptimization was also reduced by more than an order of magnitude—fromdays on a cluster to hours on a laptop.

In conclusion, we have shown that dimension reduction methods can openthe door for the optimization of truly industrial-scale experiments ingeoscience. With this advance, it becomes possible to optimally minimizeforecasted model uncertainties through a robust method of (a priori or aposteriori) data selection on the kinds of problems the petroleum andother industries routinely face today.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method of categorizing a subterraneanformation, comprising: collecting data related to the formation;performing an algorithm comprising guided Bayesian survey design whereinthe performing comprises compressing a plurality of matrixes of anobjective function associated with the guided Bayesian survey design;based at least in part on maximizing the objective function, identifyingdata observations to collect; and collecting additional dataobservations related to the formation.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinthe performing comprises forming the plurality of matrixes or loadingthe plurality of matrixes or both.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein theperforming comprises dimension reduction.
 4. The method of claim 1,wherein the performing comprises a COMPRESS procedure.
 5. The method ofclaim 4, wherein the COMPRESS procedure comprises dimension reduction.6. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing comprises distributablematrix factorization.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein thefactorization comprises rank-revealing factorization.
 8. The method ofclaim 6, wherein the factorization comprises rank-revealing QRfactorization.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the performingcomprises a REDUCEROWS procedure.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein theREDUCEROWS procedure comprises calculating a rank.
 11. The method ofclaim 10, wherein the REDUCEROWS procedure comprises eliminating matrixrows whose indices are greater than the rank.
 12. The method of claim 1,wherein the performing comprises a REDUCECOLS procedure.
 13. The methodof claim 12, wherein the REDUCECOLS procedure comprises calculating arank.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein the REDUCECOLS procedurecomprises eliminating matrix columns whose indices are greater than therank.
 15. The method of claim 1 wherein the compressing comprisesparallel processing.
 16. A method comprising: receiving informationassociated with model parameters; for an equation that comprises avector of data vectors, a vector of Jacobian matrixes, and a modelparameter vector wherein the Jacobian matrixes comprise derivatives offunctions with respect to the model parameters of the model parametervector, compressing the Jacobian matrixes to generate compressedmatrixes; and based at least in part on the compressed matrixes,maximizing an objective function to determine one or more dataacquisition parameters.
 17. The method of claim 16 wherein thecompressing the Jacobian matrixes comprises transforming the Jacobianmatrixes to a block matrix.
 18. The method of claim 17 wherein the blockmatrix comprises composite observation matrixes.
 19. The method of claim16 wherein the compressing comprises parallel processing.
 20. The methodof claim 16 wherein the data observations correspond to rows and whereinthe model parameters correspond to columns of the Jacobian matrixes. 21.A computer comprising: at least one processor; memory accessibly by theat least one processor; and code executable by the at least oneprocessor to implement an algorithm that compresses a plurality ofmatrixes of an objective function associated with a guided Bayesiansurvey design to reduce memory demand and that maximizes the objectivefunction to determine one or more data acquisition parameters of aseismic survey.